Comic Review – (Oh fuck…!) The Boys #35, Crossed #07, Chronicles Of Wormwood: The Last Battle #01, Absolution #02, Astonishing X-Men 31, Planetary #27

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Well, there had to be a downside to this great week of comics — that being the fact I’ll start writing now and finish in four hours if I’m lucky.

Darick Robertson has apparently been found and chained back to his desk, and hopefully they won’t let him have the key this time. His art, which on its usual level is superior to Carlos Ezquerra’s and John McCrea’s, in this issue is simply stellar. And ironically, this episode barely has any action — it’s basically a long piece about Mother’s Milk’s life, which explains why he’s called Mother’s Milk.

To be honest, I had figured it out way back, on the issue that shows him getting on a cab after meeting his mother, and needing to stop so he could vomit. And Ennis, wisely, does not go for the gross-out factor here. The revelation of Mother’s Milk’s problem is sober and actually makes a lot of sense (aside from giving the character a potentially bad future — or, to put it better, no future at all).

But what really makes this issue stand out is that part of it is very compelling courtroom drama — in twenty-two pages, Ennis manages to introduce several characters, have them leave a strong impression (I particularly liked Milk’s father) and then end their participation in the story. Even though this arc will be continued next issue, Ennis covers a lot of Milk’s life here, and does so brilliantly, with his tipically excellent dialogue — one line that is especially great is said by Mother’s Milk himself: “Fuckin’ war cry of every goddamn corporation on the planet: you’re right, we’re wrong, so sue us.” Ennis’ ability with dialogue is vital for the story, considering it’s mostly just that — balloons and more balloons of dialogue. Fortunately, very good dialogue.

But Mother’s Milk is not narrating his life story to Hughie just for the sake of it: his life’s events clearly interlace with Vought American’s to incriminating degrees, which is important considering Hughie has been losing faith in The Boys and needs a reminder of what they’re up against. At the same time, Mother’s Milk and Billy Butcher, intelligence men through and through, refuse to let Hughie know everything right away, saving the information for when it’ll be most useful. Which is why Hughie’s question about Mallory is practically ignored.

Completing Ennis’ writing to the point of perfection, Darick Robertson delivers beautiful art I’m not sure he’ll manage to keep up. His work has always been at the very least good, but very inconsistent and especially problematic when other artists came to join a hand — which will always be a problem considering I’m so used to Robertson’s art at this point. I still think he would do very well to partner up with Rodney Ramos, who makes his work shine even more — as two or three Ramos-inked pages of issue 11 (if I’m not mistaken) proved.

Regardless of the future, Robertson’s art in “The Boys #35″ is not only brilliant from a visual storytelling standpoint — and really, Robertson is always good at that — but it’s especially exceptional at depicting facial expressions. The fact Milk wears sunglasses does not diminish his visual displays of emotion, and his shocked face after he punches someone in a flashback is pitch-perfect. And although the scenery in Robertson’s art is always sketchier than characters, the initial page of this issue, depicting the bridge being re-built, is breathtaking in a strangely serene way.

Color artist Tony Avina matches Robertson’s work with his competent coloring — the only complaint I have is how Hughie’s hair rarely differs too much from his shaven skin. Okay, Hughie is almost bald, but he’s not completely bald and this should be adressed but oh fuck it the colors are so pretty regardless. Avina doesn’t even go for the typical cliche of changing the color palette in flashback scenes because he knows Ennis’ neat narrative eliminates the need for that.

And finally, letterer Simon Bowland deals with the large number of balloons in this story without a single problem, doing a decent job of changing font sizes and not interfering with Robertson’s art, although it must be said Robertson is extremely mindful of balloon placement and, without sacrificing the visual composition, always leaves some dead space on his panels to make the letterer’s job possible.

At this point I’m not sure I can even call “The Boys” a superhero story. It grew out of it and it’s become a drama about corporate power with a touch of dark humor that happens to have superheroes in it.

And oh God I’m 770 words in and I’ve still got five books to review –

The main group is now being actively pursued by a gang of Crossed whose leader, called Horsecock because that’s his choice of weaponry, has harbored a grudge against them. This particular gang is not as aimless as the others and are capable of using their intelligence within their own uncontrollable urges to be as brutal and evil as they possibly can. Which makes them particularly threatening: throughout the series, the Crossed have been an extremely dangerous enemy — and now, they’re an organized enemy with a grudge.

“Crossed” has been a very straightforward series, which is one of its many strengths. A considerable amount of time passes between every issue, something reflected by the seasons and the visual of the main characters, especially Stan, the series’ protagonist and narrator. The fact so much time has passed since issue one only augments the power of the scene when the main characters finally go on the offensive instead of the defensive, and revel in the cathartic slaughter.

However, this comes at an incredibly expensive price. What happens in this issue was far from unpredictable, but the way Ennis writes the scene hits an excellent balance — he avoids gratuitous gruesomeness while not sparing the reader from the brutality of the moment. A scene which once again shows the impressive consistency of the characters — especially the one who is affected the most by the event that takes place in this episode.

All characters are coherent within their personalities, but never unidimensional. I was particularly pleased at the way Brett is a prick when talking to Stan, but mostly reasonable when talking to everyone else. Kitrick also steals the scene on the latter half of the issue, and it’s very believable, how Stan and Cindy are practically reading each other’s minds at this point.

The art by Jacen Burrows is — pretty much the same from all previous issues. Which is to say magnificent. It’s interesting how all three of the Ennis’ books I’m reviewing this week are not only beautifully-drawn, but especially good at facial expressions. And the look on the face of a character as they do what is no doubt the most painful thing they’ve ever done is nothing short of superb: it manages to express pain and disgust in a single, heartbreaking look. Burrows’ ability at drawing scenery remains absolutely impressive, and I could care less about the fact he rarely uses shadows — his style doesn’t need it. Juanmar’s colours are, however, no more than passable, and the way night-time scenes are colored is dull to say the least. There’s also a mistake: on a panel, Stan’s half-open mouth is colored in a brown tone instead of teeth-white.

Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” is a clear influence for Garth Ennis (who is a fan of McCarthy, after all), and he’s putting it to good use. “Crossed” is a beautifully bleak tale so far, one that, like everything Ennis writes somehow, I’m always looking forward to the next issue.

1270 words, another four books, keep it up, Andre, keep it up…

Ah, this is good.

This might be exceedingly obvious to anyone who reads my reviews regularly (which is to say no-one, and I think I should be grateful for that), but I loved “Chronicles of Wormwood”, and I liked the sequel “The Last Enemy” despite Rob Steen’s artwork, which was so, so horrendous he probably made it by sticking the butt of the pencil in his eyeball and moving it around the paper.

But “The Last Battle” not only keeps up the excellent writing standards of the series, it also brings in the very talented Oscar Jimenez, whose art could use LESS details, but he’s far from being a Juan Jose “let’s draw five tons of debris flying out from a punch on someone’s face” Ryp. His visual storytelling, scenery and (you guessed it) facial expressions are impeccable, especially the moment Wormwood receives some shocking news — the look on his face is perfect to the point of causing laughter, and I love the angle Jimenez chooses to depict it (the same angle he chooses for the person who delivers said news, which is a great narrative rhyme). And strangely, in this comic, Juanmar’s colours are fucking excellent, especially the just-mentioned scene about Wormwood receiving the news — while the person who delivers the news is covered in bright sunlight, Wormwood is covered in shadows, which perfectly symbolizes the very distinct meanings those news have for each of them.

As for Ennis, well, this is Ennis on his adorable “dark humor” mode, which prioritizes comedy and succeeds. The talking bunny is as great as it’s always been, and the dialogue is priceless (the talk show with Carnovitz’s wife is absolutely hilarious). And I love how Wormwood, during a particularly difficult moment, uses his typical introduction “I am Danny Wormwood, blah blah blah” to convey just how fucked he is, although here the lettering screws up by not joining caption and balloon properly (I rarely mention lettering in Avatar books since it’s usually decent and consistent, plus it’s an uncredited group effort, but this was too noticeable a mistake not to notice).

I can’t really say more because I am just blatantly sucking Ennis’ cock at this point. I think you get it. Three very, very good books. Buy them.

Aaaaaah 1660 words aaaaaaah still three books left aaaaAAAAAAAAAH–

– Aaaaabsolution #02. Haha, see what I did there? Why, yes, I AM very tired.

This series started off promising, despite being a double cliche (cop with mental issues, also a superhero). I’m happy to say it has raised its quality standard in this issue, already starting with a brilliant splash page, drawn magnificently well by Roberto Viacava (who has improved immensely too). The story intelligently makes it difficult to agree or disagree with the protagonist’s methods — he’s turning into a monster, but to put down other monsters the law can’t touch, and Christos Gage is portraying his mental downfall very well by not having him completely realize what he’s doing. It’s disturbing how easily he lies about it, and his increasingly cruel methods of execution.

And execution is the strength of “Absolution”. As I said, no matter how many spins you apply, this story isn’t original by any stretch, but it is, so far, well-told. A particularly excellent scene is when Gage and Viacava illustrate how many super-powered beings could be responsible for the “bullet-less hole” method of execution the protagonist has been using. And while religious subplots tipically annoy me, here it’s introduced as a half-assed excuse he uses to justify his own actions.

The dialogue and the characters are believable, if not original or even too interesting — but there’s still plenty of room for that in future issues.

Viacava’s art, as I already mentioned, has gone from “decent” to “just short of spectacular”. For most of the issue, it’s excellent. On splash pages, it’s fantastic. There is a double page spread that is simply flawless: dynamic, intense and detailed without using action lines or any other cheap techniques. Viacava also shows great ability for visual storytelling, and an even greater ability for action scenes. He should make sure that regardless of where “Absolution” goes, it’ll be a pretty book. The colours by Juanm — er, Digikore Studios are efficient, but not impressive.

“Absolution” is well on its way to explore its full potential, even if it’s limited by an unoriginal premise.

2000 words, two books to go, bed has developed a voice and is calling me incessantly –

It’s interesting, how this week has showed Warren Ellis at his worst and at his absolute best. Let’s start by the former. “Astonishing X-Men 31″ has the typical Ellis problem I mentioned in previous issues of this series — overly clever dialogue that sounds way more concerned about entertaining the reader than actually being coherent. There’s several examples: Abigail Brand wisecrackingly talking to herself, Henry McCoy making a very trivial comment about the possibility of losing his girlfriend (while she’s still in danger), Emma Frost dropping one-liners –it’s just Ellis talking. He’s not worried about making each character sound like themselves and this is a serious problem.

Another problem is that this whole issue is pretty much a prologue for the actual story, since it deals entirely with the X-Men trying to rescue Brand as she enters the Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrolled vehicle. And that wouldn’t be a problem if the rescue was believable, which it isn’t, even for a superhero book. I do not think Storm can fly at Mach Fucking-Hell alongside a falling spaceship with no trouble at all, and Wolverine’s and Armor’s high-altitude acrobatics aren’t less exaggerated.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s an entertaining issue. But the writing is shallow at best and not what I expect from Ellis.

Phil Jimenez’s art, on the other hand, is beautiful and inventive, and richly inked by Andy Lanning. In fact, if it wasn’t for the great artwork, this issue would probably be very dull. Frank D’Armata’s colouring manages to be as good as Jimenez and Lanning, making for a visually fantastic issue, at least. Joe Caramagna’s lettering is decent, despite having one instance of confusing balloon placement (the one after “She says it’s not enough…”, although you can’t tell which one comes after it at first — hence the bad balloon placement).

Dull writing, great art, acceptable issue, but instantly forgettable.

My fingers might be going numb, but fuck it — the next book is a book I’ve been wanting to read and review for a long time, so I won’t even lower the image size much:

Fuck. Yes.

“Planetary” is Warren Ellis at his best. It’s a series very close to my heart. It’s superbly written, drawn and colored. Issue #25 — read while listening to Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig In The Sky” — sparked the mental image that inspired the novel I’m currently writing. And issue #18 is one of the best single issues of any comic I’ve ever read, a beautiful, nostalgic piece.

Shame issue #27 is such a disappointment.

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I’m fucking joking, you idiot. It’s magnificent.

It concerns the last loose end in the story — Ambrose, the Planetary operative with physics-bending powers who seemingly froze time around himself when he was about to die from gunshot wounds. In order to set up his rescue, Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner and The Drummer must get around the complicated theories regarding time travel and find a way to bring him back from the frozen time bubble — which will resume time and bleed him out from the wounds if he’s not treated immediately.

Said theories are presented by Ellis in a way that is easy to understand without insulting our intelligence, and they’re fascinating. I especially love how The Drummer mentions a time machine can only go back to the past until the point it was switched on — because before then, the time machine didn’t exist (this being a time machine that does not teleport itself with the person inside it, but only the person inside it). But Ellis does not introduce all those theories only to show off — they all play a part in building up to the superb ending, which is so well-written and epic I could practically hear a Howard Shore-esque score in my head.

It’s science-gasm, and very well-written science-gasm. But Ellis doesn’t overlook his characters, and gives Jakita Wagner a brief moment of insecurity regarding her future. And the discussions between Elijah and Drums regarding the dangerous activation of a time machine (to put it simplistically, every time traveler from the future coming to take a look and collapsing all dimensional realities) not only are vital for the story, but are written in a way that show the respect they’ve grown for one another over time.

John Cassaday works so well with Ellis that saying he’s practically an extension of Ellis’ brain would be… terribly unfair. Cassaday shines by his own. The beauty of his composition, shadowing, his unique style — all of that is unparalleled. He’s a genius with subtleties, especially, something particularly noticeable by the panels showing reactions from Elijah, Jakita and Drummer simultaneously — while Jakita and Drummer are visibly shocked or impressed, Elijah is quieter, like he knows something they don’t. This is very clear on the panel after they finally manage to get a visual on the bubble Ambrose is inside of — Elijah’s face expresses not only concern, but quiet awe at what he’s seeing.

And the splash pages, well — Cassaday’s unbelievable talent for them is pretty well established at this point, and he doesn’t come even close to disappointing here. Laura Martin, this series’ wonderful colorist, delivers a brilliant palette of golden tones that are both beautiful and evocative. The splash page showing someone walking out of the light is a clear example of How To Fucking Colour A Comic — and it’s ironic that the colours on that page are simple — which is the reason it works so well.

It’s over. And what an ending. I take my hat off to Warren Ellis, John Cassaday and Laura Martin, and thank them for one of the most well-plotted, beautiful-looking and downright clever series I’ve had the pleasure of reading. “Planetary” utterly captures that feeling of awe and wonder I like so much.

It’s a strange world indeed.

And now, time for me to pass out bfore i cam no long er typ oh sht ho sht fukc dmnit

Comic Review – Herogasm #05 and Unknown Soldier #12

In Herogasm #05, Garth Ennis provides insight into the motivations of three separate characters: Hughie, the Homelander and the Man From Vought-American. Hughie is growing tired of not fitting in with the rest of the team, a feeling augmented by the humiliation of his encounter with Black Noir on issue three. The Homelander is quickly realizing how powerful he and his peers are, and how, together, they can do anything they want. And the Man From Vought-American is keeping Homelander on a leash. Ennis tackles all that with impressive fluidity (and his typical sense of humor, especially during an hilarious awards ceremony), aided by John McCrea’s and Keith Burns’ hugely improved artwork.

Hughie, as ever, continues to be an intriguing character — he’s an important part of the team, but the reader never feels he’s truly a part of it — a feeling he obviously shares. The series has been intelligent in implying this not only narratively, but visually as well — even while wearing the black trenchcoat that is The Boys’ trademark, he’s always wearing the green sweater beneath it, creating a contrast that brilliantly emphasizes how out of place he is. It’s become the pink elephant in the room. Less talented writers would have needed a character to just mention it, but Ennis is more than capable of making something clear without that. Hughie is growing impatient and tired, and my impression is that Butcher is not only noticing it, but sharing a similar feeling towards him.

However, this is nothing new — what truly made this issue for me was the silent confrontation between the Homelander and the Man From Vought-American. You might recall that on issue two, the former destroyed a plane, leaving no survivors, and did so for no apparent reason. Issue five reveals that’s just it — he did it for no reason. Because he felt like it. The Homelander knows he’s the most powerful superhuman in the planet and yet, he’s being kept on a leash by a little corporate shit with a need-to-know-basis attitude. This same little shit, though, is much smarter than the Homelander, and Ennis makes the climax of this issue a simple exchange of looks that means much more than it could be put into words. Before that, though, there is a brilliant dialogue scene between the Man From Vought-American and a woman, which further emphasizes his constantly alert, calculating mind.

When this spin-off mini-series started, John McCrea’s and Keith Burns’ artwork was overly cartoonish, but here they seem to have found a balance. It’s nowhere near the magic McCrea’s capable of when his work is being inked by Garry Leach, but it’s not bad art either. The storytelling is clear and straightforward, and no matter what style he chooses, McCrea’s always great at shadowing. The facials expressions are much more restrained than in previous issues, where McCrea and Burns portrayed surprise or shock by drawing eyes so huge they were almost circles. In this issue, they are more consistent, almost on “Hitman” level (McCrea’s magnum opus as an artist, although Garry Leach is due a lot of credit for his superb inking). But some pages still lack detail, especially the one with this story’s title, which has the characters talking in front of a white background instead of a floor. Tony Avina’s coloring, as always, gives no reason for complaints and can be very subtle — with the awards ceremony being colored in bright, vivid tones while the bar where the Man From Vought-American drinks in receives sober tones that evoke an atmosphere of calm and silence. Finally, Simon Bowland’s lettering, as consistent as Avina’s work, is intense when necessary, nicely organized and pretty.

This spin-off series is proving just as important (and good) as the main series, and is receiving the same amount of care and attention.

As for “Unknown Soldier #12″, I’m happy to say that, while Alberto Ponticelli and Oscar Celestini deliver the same amateur artwork (although Ponticelli has an important highlights, which I’ll talk about later on), writer Joshua Dysart has outdone himself — and considering the quality of this book, that is saying a lot. The conclusion of the “Easy Kill” arc is incredibly clever and displays what, for me, is Dysart’s greatest talent as a writer: no matter what the issue is about, he never forgets to develop the characters — and in this issue, with the plot coming to a close, he had every excuse to neglect that, and he didn’t. This book already starts with the Soldier himself having an internal monologue that implies how he’s starting to fully become the monster that took him over and leaving every trace of Lwanga Moses behind — which rhymes beautifully with this issue’s last panel.

Jack Lee Howl, the CIA guy, is shaping up to be a great character — initially, I didn’t think that much of him, but his chemistry with the Soldier is enriching both characters to an impressive degree, and the way they work together in this issue is almost casual, like they’ve been doing so for years. “Unknown Soldier” is a book full of subtleties, from Sera’s confusion regarding her “late” husband to the Soldier’s methods of interrogation (sticking his thumb under the guy’s upper lip and a finger on each of his lower eyelids, ready to claw his face off). Dysart doesn’t hold back on the action scenes either, with the characters doing everything in their power to survive — even if, for that, they have to resort to a knife in the testicles or, in T’anay’s case, sexual appeal. There’s only one inconsistency that nagged at me — the way a character is shot and falls from a great height. Problem is, this character was lying on his stomach and didn’t seem close enough to the edge to fall that way, so I have to wonder whether Dysart allowed for some suspension of disbelief here or Ponticelli’s visual storytelling simply failed — and one of his artwork’s few strong traits is that his visual storytelling is clear and competent.

In fact, for all his flaws, Ponticelli delivers this time, at least when it comes to the storytelling. If he devoted more practice to everything else (his atrocious faces, bad expressions, sketchy shadowing, sketchy lines, lack of detail, dodgy perspective) he could be a truly great artist. There’s only one panel that is overdone, which is the one where the Soldier cuts someone’s throat as he storms into a room. Aside from that, the action scenes are surprisingly clear, and one of them happens inside a small hotel room that could very easily become confusing — yet, I could understand what was going on without having to backtrack to the previous panels. A lot of the credit goes to Dysart’s writing (especially when he adds a layer of irony to one of the scenes, which happens during a speech against violence), but Ponticelli’s art deserves applause for how clear it is even when staging complicated fights.

And this is true for the whole series, I must add: despite all the many, many, many flaws, Ponticelli’s art has never been unclear and has, ultimately, told the story — it could have done it far, far better, but it told the story anyway. I only wish he’d polish his style. There’s a couple of moments, for example, when the Soldier’s bandages are partially undone by a strong impact, but on the next panel they’re neatly in place again. On the other hand, Ponticelli does not use action lines to portray movement OR impact, which I consider a good thing.

Celestini’s coloring, though, is simply bad. I can’t find anything to like on it. He colors within the lines but I’d expect that from ANY so-called “professional” color artist. His shading is horrendous — not only he doesn’t soften it, he usually colors a character with no more than two tones — and these tones tend to be either a much darker tone or a much lighter tone, with no subtlety at all. This is especially noticeable on the scene where Sera introduces Rachel to Margaret.

Fortunately, there’s Clem Robins’ lettering, which contributes to the action scenes thanks to its intensity, which always suits whatever’s happening. Robins is a master in choosing the right sizes for the font, and shifts between them frequently but not gratuitously. When a character screams, they really SCREAM (I feel I’ve already said this before, but it’s still true), and in order to show someone whispering, Robins decreases the font size. This might seem like the obvious thing to do, but I’ve seen letterers trying to show the same thing by making the font transparent, for fuck’s sake. Robins’ also places the sound effects in a way that doesn’t interfere with the art but instead completes it, and the font he uses for those is strong, but never overdone. “Intense”, however, is not the only adjective to refer to Robins’ work. While it certainly is very intense on action scenes, it’s remarkably subtle most of the time, like on the scene we see a reporter adressing a camera — Robins lowers her font size, emphasizing the atmosphere of the scene rather than what she’s saying — which helps build up the tension for the climax of the story.

I’m glad this series has never lost its initial brilliance and, in fact, sets a new high standard every month. The next two issues will have a new artist, Pat Masioni. Let’s see what he brings to the table. Whether his artwork is wonderful or shitty, Dysart’s writing is so good I’d read it even if it was drawn by Rob Liefeld. With his feet.

Comic Review – The Boys #34 and Dark Entries – A John Constantine Novel

With Darick Robertson to return only on the next issue (although his covers have been excellent as usual), “The Boys” continues to be a very well-written, but visually problematic ongoing. The two artists chosen to be Robertson’s replacement, John McCrea and Carlos Ezquerra, are both competent in their respective fields, but unsuited for this story. And in this issue, Ezquerra — and his inker Hector Ezquerra — do a especially underwhelming job.

Garth Ennis, though, is in complete control of the story he’s telling, and I like the way Billy Butcher uses a “World War II” strategy to fight Stormfront. The reinforcements they had called on the previous issue are not a new character, like I had thought, but an old one I quite like and was happy to see again. And now, apparently, “the man from Vought-American” seems to be in charge of Vought-American, which puts things under a whole new light.

As usual, it’s Hughie that’s given the most attention, as he grows more and more uncomfortable with his job — something he says to the bed-ridden, comatose female for lack of any other ear. And the way Ennis ends this confession is intelligent and hilarious in its irony. The dialogue, as usual, comes off very natural without losing its cleverness, and Ennis leaves little unanswered bits for the next issues, as he usually does.

But Ezquerra’s artwork diminishes his efforts. His Billy Butcher looks nowhere near the “knowing smile” version Darick Robertson and, to an extent, John McCrea can do. In fact, his Billy Butcher looks an awful lot like Kev, from “The Authority”, another (excellent) Ennis character. But it’s not just character likeness and facial expressions that Ezquerra gets wrong (the latter by drawing eyes almost completely shut at any given time, making it look like all the characters are squinting for no reason), but also, and especially, one of his strengths — visual storytelling. Ezquerra doesn’t even bother to divide action scenes in panels, drawing the characters in several poses across the page in a sloppy, lazy way that represents a problem for letterer Simon Bowland — especially on the panel where a dialogue balloon comes from off-panel, but, with no panel divisions, Bowland is forced to make the balloon’s tail go off the right of the page, on the complete opposite direction the voice is supposed to be coming from — since the proper direction doesn’t have a line to indicate the end of the panel. Or, more accurately, there are no fucking panels. In fact, Ezquerra completely forgets to add bruises and wounds to The Boys after the fight (except for bandages, and if he forgot THAT I’d think he’d hit his head somewhere), forcing colorist Tony Avina to do everything himself.

Fortunately, on the next issue, Robertson is returning from his vacation in Hawaii to this ongoing and should get it back to its high visual standards. Fortunately, the writing standards continue to be as high as they always were, with Billy Butcher having a quick conversation with Mother’s Milk that opens up a very good question.

And, by the way, next issue is M. M.’s origin. I’ve been looking forward to that one.

“Dark Entries” is a graphic novel — or, as the cover says, a graphic mystery, which could perhaps refer to the artwork, but Dell’edera’s visual narrative isn’t that bad — by Ian Rankin. In it, John Constantine is tasked with finding out why a “haunted house reality show” called Dark Entries is scaring its participants not with special effects, but, apparently, by accident — the house itself seems to have gotten a mind of its own. And eventually, Constantine participates in the show himself.

That right there is one of the novel’s main, and many, problems. Constantine accepts this far too easily. And very stupidly. A man with his experience would never go so far into an investigation, essentially putting himself into a potential trap, without knowing what’s wrong. And yet he does, and the novel starts going crazier and crazier and relying too heavily on its own distorted mythology (like a broken chain of events that doesn’t allow some characters to go through a TV — yeah, if this sounds out-of-context to you now, sorry, but it still sounds ridiculous after hundreds of pages building up to it).

The twists in the story are hardly original — which in itself is not a problem if they’re well-executed and coherent. They aren’t. In fact, they weaken the novel, giving it a “camp” feel. Rankin’s depiction of Hell is especially ridiculous, and so is the addition of a villain in the third act of the story.

John’s relationship with the reality show participants is equally problematic, going from hostile to easy to hostile again, and then John bangs one of them, they casually enter their bedroom and act like nothing’s wrong despite them being half-naked on the bed. Simply put, it’s sloppy, unconvincing writing. Rankin is more interested in unveiling the story’s internal mythology rather than giving his characters coherence — despite John being just one of them in their eyes, they still bend over to whatever he has to say far too easily without dissenting actions or opinions.

Werther Dell’edera’s art is as bureaucratic as the writing. The visual storytelling is uninspired and even unclear at times, and his characters don’t have a lot for us to tell them apart. It’s such boring, simple artwork I find myself at a loss for anything else to say about it. So I won’t. At least, Clem Robins’ lettering is as efficient as it always is — fortunately, the letterer doesn’t try to create a different kind of caption for every character (a narrative resource Rankin overuses), since this could be even more confusing, so he keeps everything simple and with his typically beautiful font.

Overdone and extremely camp on its third act and ending underwhelmingly, “Dark Entries” is a story that portrays John Constantine’s world as being far lighter and easier than it really is, and the aforementioned “camp” feel is unsuited to the character, to use an euphemism. It reads like the first draft of a potentially good tale that should have been more haunting and well-planned.

Comic Review – Unknown Soldier #11, Herogasm #04 and Batman And Robin #03

My reviews of “Unknown Soldier” are, yes, getting a little repetitive. The writing is exceptional, the lettering is brilliant, the artwork is poor, the colouring is amateur. In fact, artist Alberto Ponticelli seems to be unable to draw faces now, as well. The guy Jack Lee Howl calls has a face that — well, more accurately, he doesn’t have a face, just a bunch of poorly-arranged lines that would make Rob Liefeld proud. And now that I’ve gotten to the point of comparing Ponticelli’s art to Liefeld, I think continuing to bash it is useless. Suffice to say, it’s bad, and colorist Oscar Celestini doesn’t help — in fact, he makes it worse. Now. To the good bits.

The “Easy Kill” arc is dealing with a complicated moral choice that is even harder for someone like Lwanga Moses, a killer with a split personality, to face (get it? “Face”? Moses “facing” a oh forget it). On the previous issue, Moses was convinced not to kill Margaret Wells. Thanks to a beautifully-written speech by his wife Sera, he realized whatever good the death of Wells could bring would still be temporary, cheap and extremely bad PR (“Look! We kill famous actresses here! Help us out!”). However, Moses’ employers do not share this opinion, and he decides to team-up with CIA agent and professional loser Jack Lee Howl to prevent the assassination of Wells.

The relationship between Howl and Moses is one of this issue’s highlights. Both men know perfectly well they’re using each other to achieve their own ends, and when Howl tries to help Moses pull himself together, he does so clearly with his own interests in mind. In fact, this is one of the several moments where Clem Robins’ lettering shines. On the panel where Moses says “I’ve done some very bad things”, Ponticelli’s art goes for an awkward pose and an overly sad expression comparable to this one:

Robins compensates for this exaggeration by decreasing the font’s size, making it look like Moses is not only speaking in a low tone of voice, but also more to himself than to anyone. Hard to tell whether this decrease in font size was Robins’ call or Dysart’s, but it’s still very well-done nonetheless, and the lettering on the rest of the issue is typically very good.

Dysart also dedicates several pages to Sera and her difficulty in dealing with the discovery that Moses had an ex-fiancée, and that she and her father want to attend the Lwanga benefit dinner. Dysart’s writing is sensitive and develops her character immensely in a single issue — which, as usual, ends with an elegant sequence of panels and the title of the arc on the final page. And I must be fair — the first panel of the final page is a rare example of Ponticelli doing a decent job.

“Herogasm #04″, which at first seemed to be just Ennis sitting back and taking the piss out of superheroes for the sake of laughs, reveals a deeper storyline about what happened in nine-eleven in this book’s universe. And Ennis narrates it with his typical skill and excellent dialogue. The flashback that happens inside a brothel and that puts Agent Lucero in an awkward situation (to say the least) is priceless, and the whole sequence inside the situation room is very well-written.

The surprise here is John McCrea and Keith Burns, whose artwork got miles better all of a sudden. Achieving a good balance between cartoonish and realistic, they get the narrative right and especially, they get president Dakota Bob perfectly, nailing his confident face and iron will. I also like the shadowing, something McCrea, no matter what style he uses, has always been very talented with. Tony Avina’s coloring is also very inspired and detailed, going above “efficient”, which is the adjective I commonly use to describe it, and Simon Bowland’s lettering has shown equal improvement — it was already competent, and now it has moments of brilliance here and there, like in the moment Agent Lucero says something with several pauses, or a pilot begs Norad to let him carry out an order.

And finally… “Batman And Robin #3″. I will stop reviewing this book. Because, really, I don’t know why I’m still doing it. I hate Morrison’s take on Batman, and this issue has a villain called Pyg that goes “oink oink oink”. Enough. I’ll simply never like this book and my reviews will be biased because I hate the “Batman” run that bred this book in the first place. So, I stop.

(Quitely’s art is notably far from its usual quality, though)

(and the coloring AAAGH STOP REVIEWING)

Comic Review – The Boys #33 and Absolution #01

A lovely cover by Robertson, one of my favorites from this series.

A rarely bad cover by Jacen Burrows — too overdone, and misses the point of the book, like all the OTHER mediocre extra covers by Juan Jose Ryp also do. Okay, I’ll admit the one with Alpha is HOT, but it still misses the damn point.

It truly is a shame that precisely when “The Boys” heats up and goes into a more action-oriented arc, Darick Robertson vanishes except for the cover art (and the covers are, at least, magnificent) and leaves the pencils in the hands of John McCrea, a good visual storyteller (as seen on his previous partnership with Ennis, the brilliant ongoing “Hitman”) but a technically mediocre artist, except when he’s working with (the vastly superior) Garry Leach’s inking (as seen on Hitman as well). Working instead with Keith Burns (whose work I’m not familiar with), McCrea is excessively cartoonish and poorly detailed, and while this can work on a series with such a style, it doesn’t work for “The Boys”.

But Garth Ennis makes up for this decrease in visual quality with his tipically excellent writing, as he turns Billy Butcher into an English, superhuman version of “Alien”, picking off the Payback team one by one after managing to temporarily get rid of their nazi leader Stormfront (and the way Butcher does this is quite clever, reminding us why he’s considered by the CIA the most dangerous individual they’ve ever encountered). Meanwhile, the remainder of The Boys decide to call reinforcements (what they consist of is yet unknown), the “Man From Vought-American” has a tense conversation with his superior and Starlight is saved from humiliation by the last person she expected to offer any help.

The dialogue continues to show Ennis’ underrated subtlety, like the way the beaten-the-shit-out-of Mother’s Milk talks to Hughie, referring to him disrespectfully as “boy” while tending to his own wounds. In fact, Hughie’s hesitation when in action and his moral doubts are starting to get to the entire team, especially Butcher, who seems to be wondering whether Hughie has become a liability (not in this issue, though, where he is utterly concentrated on violently killing Payback — yes, there is some irony on the team’s name, given their situation).

But it has to be said that Soldier Boy’s speech — now that he has no nose — is mostly not understandable. Which didn’t bother me much since I doubt whatever he says truly matters in the slightest, but still, Ennis is usually good with speech patterns, so either I suck at them or only he can understand what Soldier Boy says. What BUTCHER says to Soldier Boy, though, is memorable.

While McCrea and Burns do narratively sound but otherwise mediocre work, the consistent Tony Avina continues to provide excellent colouring, adding some much needed detail to the art, and Simon Bowland’s lettering is competent, being especially efficient with balloon placement.

All in all, It’s another great issue of “The Boys”.
.
Even without Robertson.

“Absolution #01″ is a new Avatar series written by Christos Gage, whose work I’m not familiar with except for an Authority issue with art by Darick Robertson, a book that stayed in my mind because it featured a remarkably talky battle scene where its participants seemed more interested in spitting bravados at each other rather than fighting. Needless to say, it didn’t leave a good impression. This book also didn’t get my hopes up since it features superheroes, and it’s no secret I’m tired of them, especially coming from a publisher like Avatar, whose immense creative freedom allows for many other genres to be explored.

Still, I liked “Absolution #01″.

The story’s about John Dusk, a super-police-officer who is capable of surrounding himself with toothpaste — okay, okay, I’ll be serious — with a blue aura that interacts with everything around him and protects him. Some times the criminals he fights have powers, some times not — the first we see is a super strong nazi (nazis seem to be especially popular villains these days) who keeps women captive and rapes them. Dealing with this kind of shit every day, John is clearly starting to lose it, but cannot be replaced since there are no fit replacements for a man like him. He works with two other operatives — a super strong woman called Alpha and another guy called The Servant whose only ability so far is being very religious.

The story’s told clearly and cleanly — the one bit that bothered me was the first panel, which starts with an unnecessary caption reading “Where did it start?”, which is a cliche way of starting any story. However, the dialogue is good and the characters, likeable. There’s something weirdly compelling about this book, maybe it’s my undying interest of seeing how far the human mind can be pushed, which is, after all, the central theme of “Absolution”.

Roberto Viacava’s artwork, brilliantly coloured by Andres Mossa, is very impressive in its flawless visual narrative. Panels are well-composed and there wasn’t a single one that wasn’t immediately clear to me. His drawing of human figures is also good, and he’s capable of creating some chilling panels, like the one that shows a stitched-up, mutilated girl — and this is a very important trait for a book like this, since it helps us understand just how horrible it is to be John Dusk. Viacava has the kind of artwork that, most of the time, has just the right amount of detail and, at all other times, lacks a bit of it, but never enough to be a problem. It’s solid, competent work.

So, against all odds, this book pleased me, and I’ll take it as my introduction to Christos Gage’s work rather than that Authority issue. It seems to have something interesting to say, and I’m willing to stay for the ride to find out how it will say it.

Comic Review – Batman And Robin #02, Gravel #12, Crossed #06 and The Boys #32

Batman And Robin #02

Written by Grant Morrison

Art by Frank Quitely

Colours by Alex Sinclair

Lettering by Patrick Brosseau

Published by DC Comics

In a nutshell: this sequel to Morrison’s horrendous run on Batman is just as forgettable, with annoying characters and a tone that feels too much like “All-Star Superman” instead of a Dark Knight story.

I was prepared to give Morrison another chance to shine writing anything related to Batman, even though this story contains something I consider a flaw in the character: Robin. Batman as a loner is much more interesting and coherent than having a brightly-coloured kid as a partner.

And when Morrison’s Robin is the most annoying kid in the recent history of comics, you cannot make me like this fucking book.

The story is… well, after not acting according to plan while trying to stop an attack on a police station performed by tipically Morrison-esque characters (a guy with his head on fire, a hugely fat lady and… clones), Robin decides he won’t be Robin anymore. No, there’s nothing to distinguish this from all the million other similar plots in any narrative medium you care to name. And this isn’t even motivated by a good reason, just by Robin’s immense arrogance that keeps making me wish he gets in the way of a wrecking ball. And meanwhile Nightwing/The New Batman keeps moping about how he sucks as Batman and blah-blah-blah. Of all the ways this story could have been handled, this is the most predictable and generic.

Not to mention Morrison still can’t decide on the tone — this Batman feels more like Silver Age Batman, not the Batman that should exist today — the one seen on mature, complex pieces of work like Azzarello’s “Joker”. And Morrison’s eccentric dialogue and characters just contribute to make this book look as far as possible from the dark, gothic Gotham City I’ve come to love and that has always held great appeal for me. And yet another problem Morrison hasn’t bothered to fix: Batman and Robin continue to show super-human strength, like the moment where Robin is thrown against a wall and cracks it with ridiculous force, instead of the wall cracking his spine.

And the usually reliable Frank Quitely provides a sketchy, confusing artwork that is especially flawed in the unclear action scenes. None of the beautiful clean lines and great narrative seen on “All-Star Superman”, just muddled, lacklustre work. All of which is made even worse by Alex Sinclair’s coloring, which invests in a varied, bright palette that has nothing to do at all with Batman or Gotham City — but, well, when the writer himself is doing his best to get away from that as much as possible, can I blame the colourist for following his lead?

I guess not. This book’s problem really is Morrison, which just proves to me every month he’s the most overrated comic writer in the industry. And this book, on its second issue, is turning out to be even worse than the pathetic run that originated it.

Gravel #12

Story by Warren Ellis

Written by Warren Ellis and Mike Wolfer

Art by Mike Wolfer

Colours by Juanmar

Lettering by Avatar Press

Published by Avatar Press

In a nutshell: even though it’s clearly following a formula since issue one, it’s still an entertaining and occasionally creative read.

The first seven issues consisted in William Gravel murdering the members of the Minor Seven, usually one per issue. And as the formula for a first, opening arc, that was more than acceptable, especially since it was written with wit, charm and Gravel’s typical anti-hero charisma. But now, on this second arc, Gravel is once again murdering someone per issue, in this case, members of the MAJOR Seven — while recruiting people for his own team of magicians, which is a welcome addition to a plot that is quickly wearing out.

With Avatar Press, Warren Ellis has done the exact opposite of what Garth Ennis has done — instead of using the publisher’s exceptional creative freedom to develop his ideas as much as possible, his stories for Avatar have been more like half-developed, if enjoyable, ideas. Only “Doktor Sleepless” shows more depth, since “Wolfskin”, “Blackgas” and “Black Summer” present some good concepts that are never explored to their full potential.

And William Gravel is a great character who hasn’t yet reached his climax. He’s smart, tough and a bastard, but still not fully-rounded as a character, possibly to keep him unpredictable — which also keeps him distant from the reader. He’s intriguing to follow, but his decisions rarely, if ever, impact on me.

Mike Wolfer, however, does his best to add whatever depth he can to the protagonist, and in this issue he succeeds via a conversation he has with one of the Major Seven, who outwits Gravel using only words and no violence. And while this conversation was planned by Warren Ellis, since he developed the story, the details are likely Wolfer’s, and his dialogue is interesting without trying to be too witty — a problem Ellis has and that constantly deprives his dialogue of character voice, although this has been much less present in his recent work.

As the artist, Wolfer delivers the same solid, consistent artwork I’ve come to expect from him, always narratively clear, elegant and with an immediately recognizable style. I especially like the one with the snakes. And Juanmar’s colours complete his work well, getting the color palette and the overall tone right.

What “Gravel” needs is a more complex, interesting story that goes beyond one guy per issue getting killed. This is a formula that has gotten old but that, for now, is still kept alive by Wolfer’s writing and some of Ellis’ concepts.

Crossed #06

Written by Garth Ennis

Art by Jacen Burrows

Colours by Juanmar

Lettering by Avatar Press

Published by Avatar Press

In a nutshell: like the last issue, Ennis continues to add depth to his characters, now that the horrendous world that was left after the Crossed came has already been established emphatically. Another brilliant issue.

The previous episode was disarming, but to me probably less than most people, since I have been reading Garth Ennis for years and can already see there’s much more subtlety and depth to him as a writer than at first glance. Focusing on the way nature goes on despite humanity going down the shitter, the last issue was interesting and brilliant in showing how oblivious the world is to human suffering — and the spread with the wolves was beautiful and yet melancholic in symbolizing exactly that. Ennis also took the opportunity to start adding more depth to his characters, something he was doing to a smaller degree as he portrayed the world overrun by the Crossed — and now that we’re past half of this series’ duration (nine issues), Ennis replaces our morbid curiosity in watching the apocalypse with a genuine concern regarding the main characters — something I already felt, but it’s stronger now.

Elegantly telling the backstories of two characters while moving the plot forward, Ennis resumes the violence from previous issues for the narrative’s sake, as he tells what happened to Kittrick and Geoff. And while Kittrick’s story is simply traumatic, Geoff’s verges on comedy as he reveals something about himself that came unexpectedly. But mind you, it VERGES on comedy, something Ennis never allows unintentionally, and it comes as a good narrative surprise in reminding us the existence of the Crossed does not make all the other humans saints.

Jacen Burrows’ art is as beautiful as ever, with brilliant perspective, characterization and some lighting work that Burrows doesn’t usually use but doesn’t disappoint when it’s required. Juanmar’s colours are moody and appropriate, establishing the tone well, resulting in a comic that excels both narratively and visually.

And it promises a ferocious climax. Knowing Ennis, he’ll make us care about the characters as much as possible before showing us their merciless fates.

The Boys #32

Written by Garth Ennis

Art by Carlos Ezquerra

Inks by Hector Ezquerra

Colours by Tony Avina

Lettering by Simon Bowland

Published by Dynamite Entertainment

In a nutshell: an intense, explosive issue that, unlike previous ones, is focused on action and shows “The Boys” in a moment of extreme vulnerability, starting to explore the careful build-up from the previous thirty-one episodes. Ezquerra, however, isn’t up to the task.

In a complete turn of events, the member of The Boys I least expected to get beaten half to death got beaten half to death. With The Female in a hospital, the rest of the team goes to see her and find out they’re not in a hospital — she was taken to a place that could be turned into a trap. And meanwhile, Starlight deals with her new “uniform”, which is small enough to be easily stuffed in your pocket.

But Starlight is just Ennis balancing the progression of the plot, since the obvious focus is The Boys falling into a trap. It’s ironic that Ennis dislikes superheroes so much and yet can write amazing action scenes with them — a shining example being the moment the windows explode due to a sonic boom, which builds up to the following page where the fight starts.

But the real focus of this issue is truly Billy Butcher, whose dangerous nature is portrayed as strongly as ever. While Hughie is becoming less and less capable of dealing with all the violence of the world he’s gotten into, Butcher is growing angrier at the people around him and, especially, at his targets. And it’s made clear that while he’s a super-human, his killing methods are still very much human, as exemplified by the use of a belt. The action scene that dominates most of this issue is brilliantly written and shocking due to being unexpected.

However, the efficient Carlos Ezquerra (inked by Hector Ezquerra) is not efficient enough for something like this. He’s a poor artist regarding action scenes, and while he does try hard here, he doesn’t come even close to the sense of impact and danger that Darick Robertson would be capable of conveying with his artwork. However, the scenes are clear and Ennis’ writing makes up for Ezquerra’s artistic shortcomings — except on the panel where we see Butcher using the belt, which needed much more power and less action lines. But the panel showing Butcher taking off the belt in order to use it deserves credit for its good use of shadows. If there’s one artist who should be replacing Robertson, that would be Steve Dillon. Avina’s colours, fortunately, haven’t lost any of their usual quality, doing their best to enrich the artist’s work, and Simon Bowland’s lettering is noticeably more intense than normal, as can be seen on the moment Starlight yells at two guys.

Tense and impactful, “The Boys #32″ is a brilliant way to start the second half of this exceptional ongoing. It’s a shame Robertson can’t keep up, since this episode would have hugely benefited from his artwork.

Comics Review – The Boys #29, Gravel #10, Prototype #01, Doktor Sleepless #12 and Ignition City #01

(not an original cover, but they always look good walking toward us like that)

The Boys #29

Written by Garth Ennis

Art by Darick Robertson

Colours by Tony Avina

Lettering by Simon Bowland

Published by Dynamite Entertainment

In a nutshell: a surprising twist that makes even Billy Butcher widen his eyes makes this an intense and excellent issue with good art that could, however, be better inked.

“The Boys” has been in a slow crescendo for some time now, with subtle foreshadowing amidst the depravity of its dirty universe. Garth Ennis clearly knows where he’s going with this and is in no hurry to get there — and that would be a problem for a less skilled writer who didn’t know how to reward the reader with information enough to satisfy his thirst for answers. But every issue brings another little tidbit of plot that makes the story more interesting and makes me look forward even more to the next issue — and most importantly, every issue is at the very least well-written and entertaining.

This one starts with a good prologue that quickly gives way to Butcher and his team interrogating the last surviving member of the G-Wiz, after The Female and the Frenchman slaughtered them to save Hughie (whose cover was blown). The remainder of the issue happens in this scenario, and for perhaps the first time, we see Hughie take a serious initiative. But while Hughie is the most likeable character of this series, Butcher continues to be by far the most interesting and threatening — which is why it comes as a surprise to see him being caught completely off-guard as he is here.

The dialogue and plot progression are as excellent as I’ve come to expect from Ennis — it’s always a bitch to review his work because I just find myself repeating the same points that he always gets right. Darick Robertson, on the other hand, is quite more inconsistent — his artwork in this series has gone from stellar to lazy and to stellar again, although it was never below average. Here, he draws some great panels and some confusing ones (on the second half of the issue) and the problem becomes very clear — his inking is problematic.

You can clearly see some lines being curvy and elegant and others being sketchy and thick, often on the same panel — or an excess of black that makes the artwork seem muddled. Artists like David Lloyd use this to great effect but Robertson does not. He clearly likes to ink his own artwork, and it’s not easy to submit your pencils to an inker with his own style and ideas — but Robertson’s art is far, far better when inked by someone like Rodney Ramos or Tom Palmer. An example is Ramos’ inking in some pages of issue #11 (if I’m not mistaken) of this series, which look so much better than the rest of that episode which was inked by Robertson himself.

An example is the aforementioned second half of this episode — some pages are a downright mess, and I can easily picture the competent colour artist Tony Avina not having the faintest idea of where to start. On the other hand, the last pages are breathtaking, especially the moment a certain character stands right in front of another, face-to-face.

Simon Bowland’s lettering is very good, with efficient balloon placement and intense font sizes — I especially like how he switches that depending on distance in a certain page, when a character yells something and his font is big — and on the next panel, he’s seen still yelling from a distance, and his font is now far smaller to give us an idea of how far he is. Bowland’s one problem continues to be the big font he always uses for The Legend, which is supposed to show he talks loudly, but instead makes the other characters sound like they’re whispering — but The Legend is not featured in this issue, so the problem is non-existent here.

With an epilogue incoming on issue #30, which marks this series’ transition to its second half, “We Gotta Go Now” has been another intriguing and excellent arc that expands the fascinating universe of “The Boys”, where superheroes are just another version of celebrities.

(simplicity works)

Gravel #10

Written by Warren Ellis and Mike Wolfer

Art by Mike Wolfer

Colours by Juanmar

Published by Avatar Press

In a nutshell: despite not doing justice to the powerful cliffhanger from the previous issue, it moves all the subplots forward and is, as usual, a very interesting read with art that is an example of exceptional visual narrative.

I did feel a bit bummed at how the cliffhanger of the previous issue — Gravel getting his entire fucking arm cut off — was quickly solved here, almost as an afterthought. Ellis and Wolfer offer some clues on how Gravel glues it back on and that’s about it — but fortunately, they use the spare pages this buys them to advance the plot, with an excellent conversation between Gravel and Mordecai Cave, and the introduction of a promising new character.

It’s good that Gravel is always consistent in being a bastard, which is, after all, one of the things that makes him so interesting. His impatient reply to Mordecai Cave was a great touch, and watching him work is always fascinating — like the way he casually seals his door with protective magic before going out. But in the second half of this episode, Ellis and Wolfer add a new character which is so far very interesting and very necessary to keep the plot moving.

On the art department, Wolfer continues to please with his perfect visual storytelling — you can always understand what is going on, and his composition and angles are so good I don’t mind the shortcomings of his style — his faces, for example, which can look very strange now and then. He also shares with Jacen Burrows an immense talent for drawing backgrounds and perspective, and placing characters in them. In fact, now that I think about it, most of Avatar’s artists are remarkably good in this aspect — Raulo Caceres’ covers for “Doktor Sleepless” are always fucking breathtaking, and Gianluca Pagliarani’s “Ignition City” — as I’ll say in the review — looks absolutely amazing. But back to “Gravel #10″: Juanmar’s colors are also pretty and the palette, well-chosen to match the time of day and the surroundings.

“Gravel” is not a mind-blowing series so far — but it is certainly an interesting one, and a good read.

(An excellent, attractive cover)

Prototype #01

Written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray

Art by Darick Robertson and Matt Jacobs

Colours by Wes Hartman

Lettering by Ed Dukeshire

Published by Wildstorm

In a nutshell: fast-paced, entertaining and visually good, it surprises by having a charm of its own instead of being the usual promotional garbage comics based on upcoming games are.

On my “Back to Brooklyn #3″ review, I said I thought most of Jimmy Palmiotti’s (and consequently his partner Justin Gray’s) work was cliched and uninspired — so I’m glad to see a comic by them contradicting that. Despite not being based on an original concept, “Prototype #01″ has enough story to be enjoyable and respectable, avoids cheesy dialogue and looks quite good.

In fact, Darick Robertson’s art looks better here than it does on “The Boys” — probably because he’s working with someone else, Matt Jacobs, who finishes his art well. The visual narrative is as good as I’ve come to expect from Robertson, and the only problem is the exaggerated scowling by some characters with huge gritted teeth. Also, the artwork is somewhat weakened by the cretinous sounds Palmiotti and Gray write — like a car explosion being represented by “BADOOOSH!”. Wes Hartman’s colours are surprisingly detailed and well-rendered, adding depth to Robertson and Jacobs’ work.

The dialogue isn’t incredible but it isn’t preposterous either, sounding very natural — the one exception being the moment a character makes a joke regarding “ford” which happens in an inappropriate time, too dangerous and tense to try to be funny — but then again, the character who says it seems like an experienced fighter, so it isn’t unacceptable. The story manages to stay interesting, going from flashbacks to the present and not afraid to show violence — which is occasionally a bit camp thanks again to the sound effects — like a bite sounding like “SLUTCHH!”. Fortunately, despite those, letterer Ed Dukeshire does an all around excellent job.

For a first issue of a comic based on a videogame, this is promising work. It looks like Palmiotti and Gray want to extract as much as possible from the plot, which is commendable and tries its best to kick down the wall between games and art.

(a cover that doesn’t say much about the actual story)

Doktor Sleepless #12

Written by Warren Ellis

Art by Ivan Rodriguez

Colours by Andrew Dalhouse

Published by Avatar Press

In a nutshell: enigmatic and brilliant, it feels like a mad scientist book from beginning to end, introducing a number of interesting ideas while moving a fascinating plot forward with competent artwork — bad colouring notwithstanding.

Heavenside is a warzone — a warzone created by Doktor Sleepless, whose real goals are unknown to the general public. For them, he’s just a crazy preacher who stays on top of his castle and does eccentric things. In this arc, Warren Ellis decided to disappear with him and show us the ripples of his interaction with Heavenside. For several issues now, we haven’t seen John Reinhardt — just the consequences of his actions.

Which is a brilliant narrative choice. Not only it makes the character even more interesting than he already was, it also gives him a godly aura, like a great puppeteer. It’s fascinating to follow the events of Heavenside and seeing how they can be tracked back to him. And besides that, Ellis introduces, in this issue, a gang based on an exceptional concept. Their conversation with Detective Singer is the highlight of this episode — and the way the cop respects them just adds to her intelligence.

The dialogue, by the way, is finally the way I like it. I have been complaining about Warren Ellis’ lack of character voice recently — how every character he was writing seemed to talk like HIM, not like themselves. But this problem seems to be fixed, as the dialogue here is dynamic and interesting.

Ivan Rodriguez’s art is narratively excellent as usual, and offers several panels that don’t need to be big in order to look great. I especially like the one where the leader of the aforementioned gang lifts his shades to reveal the device on his left eye. The one moment that felt a bit gratuitous was the shot of the reporter’s arse wearing a thong — not that I’m complaining, you know. Just from a — erm, narrative standpoint. Yes. Still a very well-drawn arse.

The problem is Andrew Dalhouse’s colouring. He’s been getting worse and worse, and now, he doesn’t even bother to add a little texture to surfaces, or even to shade them. His carelessness can be seen when detective Singer’s eyes suddenly go from brown to blue in a pretty big panel — and I don’t know if the grinder symbol on the reporter’s shirt is Rodriguez’s or Dalhouse’s responsibility, but it’s not there either.

An excellent issue of an ongoing that is becoming quite an amazing series — much more than it initially promised.

(And I should add: Raulo Caceres’ wraparound covers are fucking amazing and it’s ridiculous not a single Avatar artist was nominated for an Eisner award.)

(Holy. Shit.)

Ignition City #01

Written by Warren Ellis

Art by Gianluca Pagliarani

Colours by Digikore Studios

Published by Avatar Press

In a nutshell: huge, funny, amazing, beautiful and downright enchanting. “Ignition City”, in its very first issue, can turn out to be one of Warren Ellis’ best minis.

“Ignition City” is one of those books that awes you for its entire duration. Full of fascinating ideas, a steampunk feel and an excellent sense of humor, it’s the kind of book I’d love to see more of in comics — it’s Warren Ellis at his best. And considering I deeply disliked “Aetheric Mechanics”, it’s very good to see him and Gianluca Pagliarani collaborating on something so promising and wonderful.

It’s 1956. In an alternate reality where the Second World War happened, but in a world that is no stranger to space exploration, pilot Mary Raven receives the news that her father has died in Ignition City — Earth’s last remaining spaceport. With no-one reliable in there, Mary needs to fly there herself to go get his effects.

One of this book’s greatest achievements is to make the protagonist instantly likeable. Not only beautiful and charming, the way she responds to the death of her father is remarkably humane. A great example is when a friend asks her if the telegram she just received is bad news, to which she responds “Kinda. My father’s dead.” Clearly not having absorbed the meaning of it yet. And the way she cries in her bedroom is poignant while avoiding exaggeration.

In fact, “Ignition City” seems full of great characters — my favourite being Yuri, the hilarious foul-mouthed cosmonaut whose lines are pure fucking gold. But Piet Vanderkirk and Bronco are also interesting and funny.

Gianluca Pagliarani’s art — with a fantastic sepia colour art by Digikore Studios — is simply breath-taking. I complained he had a problem with drawing faces in “Aetheric Mechanics”, but here, his human figures are very good and the backgrounds, magnificent. I muttered swearwords in awe upon seeing the two-page-spread showing Ignition City from above — and I have to add that the way Digikore Studios shaded the island makes it seem even more real. This is amazing artwork, certainly the best I’ve seen this week.

“Ignition City” is a potential masterpiece — I don’t usually praise a book on its first issue, but this one introduces enough characters, story, wit and charm to be satisfying all on its own.

Comic Review – Crossed #04 and Unknown Soldier #06

 

(Jacen Burrows — there’s nothing he can’t draw. And well.)

Written by Garth Ennis

Art by Jacen Burrows

Colours by Juanmar

Published by Avatar Press

In a nutshell – Merciless like the previous issues, its small bits of humor serve as a slight relief to the opressive, claustrophobic feel of the book — the feeling that, at any given moment, someone may die — and it can be anyone. And did I mention the visuals are pretty fucking great, too?

“Don’t be making more of ‘we’ than there is”. This line, said by Cindy to Stan, perfectly portrays what I love in Ennis’ work: a subtlety that completely makes up for the brutal events he writes. It’s this kind of line that makes me interested in the characters of this book: Cindy, who stripped herself free of any emotion in order to lead the group to survival and, most of all, protecting her son (an interesting paradox, to lose all emotion in order to save someone you love). Stan, who works closely with her, an all-around nice guy who seems passive, but snaps into action whenever it’s needed. Thomas, who takes care of Kelly — a girl who went blind when a nuke went off in her field of vision.

These aren’t faceless meatbags waiting to be killed in some creatively horrible way. These are people, wanting to survive in the hope they’ll find safety, something that passes for a life, maybe even witness the start of a new world, a world without the Crossed. And it’s heartbreaking to see how unlikely this new world is, and how they still cling so bad to their lives even though death seems more and more like a better alternative, every day. And it’s this kind of narrative depth that makes Ennis a truly amazing writer and explains, partially, why I enjoy his work so much.

It’s also what makes the violence in “Crossed” an important aspect of the story: to witness the brutality of this world is vital to understand how dangerous it is, how suddenly ANYONE in the group can die. Stan, Thomas, Cindy, Cindy’s son, anyone can just die at any given moment. It makes “Crossed” a constantly intense read, but it doesn’t stop Ennis from adding a bit of his typical humor here and there — like a crossed whose weapon of choice is unusually organic.

The crossed, by the way, continue to be fascinating — not only to the reader, but to the characters as well, who are noticing their evolution into beings that don’t just kill — they find new and worse ways to kill for their own amusement, which make them even more threatening. And this varies from crossed to crossed — some act on impulse, some actually think how to do things another (horrible) way. As Cindy puts it, “You’re looking for a rulebook that isn’t there”. And this adds yet another quality to “Crossed” — unpredictability. 

Jacen Burrows’ artwork is amazing as always — drawing backgrounds with excellent details and perspective, and expressive characters that display their emotions with subtlety (Stan’s face after Cindy says the line mentioned in the first paragraph is downright perfect). Like Ennis, he does not spare the reader, and his visual narrative is always clear. Juanmar’s colours are appropriately bleak and cold.

As you can probably tell, I’m loving “Crossed”. What a surprise, me loving something written by Ennis, with art by Jacen Burrows and published by Avatar Press. 

 

(good concept, bad execution continue to plague the covers of this excellent ongoing)

Unknown Soldier #06

Written by Joshua Dysart

Art by Alberto Ponticelli

Colors by Oscar Celestini

Lettering by Clem Robins

Published by DC\Vertigo

In a nutshell: a great conclusion to a brilliant first story arc that makes “Unknown Soldier” one of the most promising ongoings of late, despite the weak artwork.

Setting a story in the middle of a real, problematic place like Uganda can be incredibly dangerous: it can be seen as a cheap attempt to give the plot some relevance, as exploiting the suffering of real people for entertainment purposes — or it can be seen as a valid attempt to draw attention to a real issue and doing it through a well thought-out, brilliant story. Fortunately, Joshua Dysart has hit the jackpot with the latter and did so practically alone, since Alberto Ponticelli’s sketchy, laughably poor artwork and Oscar Celestini’s measly attempts at colouring do not aid the narrative, which stays upright all by itself — and, it has to be said, with the help of Clem Robins’ outstanding lettering, where the veteran proves once again how important this overlooked aspect of comic production can be.

The opening scene, the camp raid, proves both Dysart’s talent and Ponticelli’s lack of it. In the middle of all the chaos, wherein Lwanga Moses runs after the bastard Ilakut, Dysart pauses the scene briefly by adding a newspaper article describing with politeness and professionalism the brutal horror of what we’re seeing — and that’s precisely where Ponticelli and Celestini fail. In a far, overhead shot of the battle, you can clearly see how off the perspective is, and even some people that look like cardboard cut-outs, and Celestini’s colouring is as basic as it gets, without any ideas of its own.

Dysart proceeds to solve all the loose ends while setting up the new story arc. Lwanga Moses seems to have disappeared under his bandages, both phisically and emotionally, and we only see him instead of the Unknown Soldier for a very brief moment, when his wife talks to him.  And she continues to be portrayed as a faithful, but strong and determined woman who does what needs to be done. Jack Lee Howl is the funny kind of spook bastard who will clearly show up again in the future, and the reporter is introduced as a pacifist counterpoint to Moses’ destructive plans. The dialogue is good as usual, and even when Howl says something that is clearly an attempt by Dysart to bring another African fact to the attention of the reader, it is done with Howl’s usual charm. “It’s something I take pride in” is one of his best lines in this episode.

But… yeah. Ponticelli and Celestini. It’s like Ponticelli sketches the entire issue and before he can add details, the pages are yanked from his hands by Celestini, who colours the basic tones of the entire issue and before he can add details, the editor yanks the pages from him and gives them to Clem Robins for lettering. Robins, as usual, manages to convey feelings and intensity with his work, and his balloon placement is impeccable — although Ponticelli’s art is so poor you could place the captions right over the character’s faces for all the difference it’d make.

I look forward to the next story arc, and hope for a new visual team.

Catching Up With The Last Weeks – Apologies, Reviews and Rantings

Sorry.

See, I’m on new meds. And the scary thing is that they’re actually working. Although I’m still feeling exhausted for no reason, it no longer impacts my productivity — so in the last few weeks, I’ve been overwhelmed by an urge to create. If you’ve seen my Flickr account lately, or if you follow me on Twitter, or if you’ve been to the Whitechapel Forum, you’ll see what I mean.

So I kinda forgot the blog. No worries. I’ll make up for the lack of reviews with capsule reviews of the comics I missed, and, on a new post, actual reviews of this week’s comics. More movie reviews, flash fics and Pitch Black strips to come soon.

(I had actually written most of the comic reviews two weeks ago, but I was hit by a wall of tired and collapsed halfway through it. Upon returning, I tried to continue it but you know when it feels like you’re trying to bring a long-dead body back to life? Yeah. So. Capsule reviews.)

THE BOYS #28 – It brings the usual goods (great writing and dialogue, good characters), plus it’s a especially intense issue with an interesting cliffhanger. John Higgins’ art is not as good as in his first guest appearance, but it’s still competent — and Tony Avina and Simon Bowland (colorist and letterer), as usual, don’t disappoint.

UNKNOWN SOLDIER #5 – Same excellent writing, same shitty art, same shittier colours, same brilliant lettering. Despite being visually poor, the script makes up for it, resulting in a great book.

BACK TO BROOKLYN #4 – The brief drop-off in quality I mentioned on the last issue – and which I assumed to be mostly Jimmy Palmiotti’s fault – is absent here, and the book is back on track — this time, credit goes to all involved. Both the general story, the subtleties of it and the artwork are stellar.

NO HERO #4 – A book that seemed to be going nowhere new suddenly is. A story that seemed to lack depth suddenly has a lot of it. An artist who seemed to worried about the visuals and forgetting the narrative suddenly does amazing work in both fronts. A reviewer is suddenly very happy.

THE WALKING DEAD #59 – Tense, foreboding, well-paced, with good dialogue and great artwork. This ongoing seems to be done tripping on its own feet.

WOLVERINE #71 – The artwork is fucking amazing. The script continues to provide good use for it, with an interesting story.

Movie Review – Punisher: War Zone

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450314/

When it comes to Hollywood, it seems that the simpler the concept, the more they fuck up. There’s been six movies about a man who dresses up as a giant bat and fights villains like a penguin-like crime boss or a murderer who dresses up as a clown — and out of those six movies, only the two directed by Joel Schumacher aren’t above average (in fact, are as far below the average as the center of the planet is from the top of the Everest).

And then we’ve got a vigilante who is simply in a constant state of anger and kills criminals because criminals killed his family.

Period.

And Hollywood has consistently failed to get him right, even though recently Garth Ennis did on the comics with his phenomenal “Punisher Max” series. And even basing the movie on those comics has resulted in yet another failure.

First, we had the 1989 Punisher, who was played by Dolph Lundgren. I could go on, but it’s unecessary. Dolph Lundgren.

Then, in 2004, Thomas Jane did a good job as Frank Castle but the script and the direction failed by not only choosing Tampa for a location instead of New York City, but by having poor dialogue and badly-chosen characters — who worked well on Ennis’ comics but not in the film.

And finally, after two movies that were practically a manual on how not to make a Punisher film, director Lexi Alexander and screenwriters Nick Santora, Kurt Sutter, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (the latter two wrote the exceptional “Iron Man”) started working on a new movie with Ray Stevenson, famous as Titus Pullo from the HBO series “Rome” (which I have not yet watched). This time, it looked like it was going to work. A seemingly dedicated director, two writers from “Iron Man”, another two from acclaimed TV shows like “Prison Break” and “The Wire”, two movies’ worth of experience so they wouldn’t make the same mistakes…

… and the result is another failure, if still the best Punisher movie yet.

Screenwriter Kurt Sutter left the project (which is why he’s uncredited) claiming they had decided to make a superhero movie instead of a crime drama. He was absolutely correct. Very loosely based on the comic series — I mean, on the characters of the comic series “Punisher Max”, the plot is about Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, accidentally killing an undercover FBI agent. Feeling guilty, he decides to retire — but while he tries to make up for the man’s widow and orphan, Billy Russoti, aka Jigsaw, gets an army together to kill the vigilante, who ruined his face – hence his nickname.

Sounds like a down-to-earth plot, correct? Sadly, the creative team failed to understand the Punisher at all — even the 2004 movie portrayed his methods better. Let’s describe the first action scene, shall we?

A group of mob bosses are having dinner. The lights go out. The Punisher appears on the middle of the table, lighting a red flare. Very good theatrics, but I don’t think surrounding yourself with armed mob bosses is good combat strategy. Luckily, the mob bosses seem to be idiots, since they just sit there while the Punisher calmly walks up to capo-de-tutti-capi Massimo Cesare and cuts his entire head off with a single slice of his combat knife — since the creative team of this film apparently believes it’s easy to cut a man’s head clean off. With a knife, no less.

The Punisher then proceeds to wrestle with Cesare’s wife, who was the only person at a table with ARMED MEN to pull a gun — so he breaks her neck while everyone gasps, still not understanding that he plans to kill them ALL. The lights return for some reason and now the Punisher is in the middle of a room surrounded by men who finally drew their weapons. So what does he do? He climbs on a chandelier, hangs upside down from it with two sub-machineguns and spins while shooting at the army of wiseguys that enters the room.

…

Let me repeat this.

He climbs on a chandelier, hangs upside down from it with two sub-machineguns and spins while shooting at the army of wiseguys that enters the room. And the funniest thing? He doesn’t miss a single one, because hanging upside-down is seemingly very good for one’s accuracy. And the wiseguys, of course, are unable of hitting a stationary target in the middle of a dining room. An upside-down stationary target.

And incredibly, the movie isn’t a disaster, because it manages to be more entertaining than the two previous Punisher films combined. Despite the preposterousness, the action scenes are well-edited and surprisingly violent — Lexi Alexander does not subscribe to the Tony Scott style of directing, which consists of putting the camera inside a blender and hoping it will capture some interesting footage. The violence is the source of some great dark humor that would probably make Ennis proud — although I suspect it’s the only thing that would make Ennis proud in this film.

For no good artistic reason (but pretty good financial ones), the screenwriters decided to use the names and likenesses of Ennis’ characters in “Punisher: War Zone” — however, their film versions are very shallow versions of their interesting original selves. Maginty is a drug addict and parkour artist, Soap is a complete idiot but not in a fun way, Budiansky is the typical by-the-book cop who wants to do the right thing, Pittsy is an actually quite calm right-hand-man while Ink is an eager kid. All of these characters could have used completely new names, but instead, the creative team decided to waste them in deluxe cameos, so the fans would go “look, it’s from the comic!”.

Then we’ve got the cringe-worthy acting. The scenery-chewing award goes to Dominic West, an absolutely horrendous Jigsaw. Resorting to cliches, like grabbing his girlfriend by the neck because she touched his precious hair just to show how evil he is, he’s unable of speaking his lines without twisting his face in ten different versions of scowling. Being covered in make-up does not improve his work. Colin Salmon is pathetic as Budiansky, insisting on looking badass or rolling his eyes whenever the law is bent. Julie Benz can’t do much with her limited widow, and Doug Hutchinson refuses to add any depth to Loony Bin Jim and simply scowls at everything looking psychotic. The rest of the supporting cast follows the same line.

Ray Stevenson manages to hold his ground as Frank Castle, but Thomas Jane remains the best interpreter of the character so far, because Stevenson is forced by the creative team to smile sometimes and, well, to hang upside down from a chandelier. Marlon fucking Brando would have a hard time with this Frank Castle. His costume does not help either, since this version of the character thinks it’s effective to be covered head to toes in heavy body armor that makes him look like a reject from the game “Gears of War”.

With so much bad dialogue, irregular direction and poor characterization, how is “Punisher: Warzone” the best Punisher film yet?

One of the main reasons is the stupendous cinematography — if this was a better movie, it could actually be nominated for an academy award in this aspect. The frames are incredibly well-composed and the colours are strong and oppressive– usually yellow, red, orange, green and other “pure” tones dominate the visuals, creating an interesting New York City. Despite some poor frames chosen by Lexi Alexander (the low angle showing the Punisher on the chandelier — and in slow motion), the cinematography is pure eye-candy from beggining to end. There’s always something interesting to look at.

The aforementioned action scenes might be preposterous, but always easy to follow and there are some truly excellent moments, like the fantastic camera movement that shows a wall between the Punisher and an army of wiseguys — and the Punisher’s tactic to clear the room is great. I also applaud the violence, which is more than appropriate, despite Alexander resorting to some very gratuitous moments like a guy on a toilet having his head randomly blown away. However, the scene Castle casually kills an unarmed man with a shotgun, startling Budiansky, is one of the best scenes of the film.

Also, despite some poor choices, Alexander does not lose track of the narrative — it might be weak, but she keeps her eye on the ball. I particularly like the scene where Micro predicts that Castle will come back to his doorstep just seconds after leaving — he even counts “three, two, one…”. And this movie, to my utter surprise, has some of the best dramatic moments in the Punisher series.

No, seriously. I was baffled myself.

The scene where The Punisher watches the widow’s child playing with the toys of his deceased kids is poignant and doesn’t resort to any cliches or exaggerations. And when faced with a choice between the lives of two friends, in the film’s climax, Castle makes the choice the Castle from the comics would no doubt make.

But this is counter-balanced by Castle’s slight smile when he destroys Jigsaw’s face (The Punisher isn’t interested in torturing his enemies, just in killing them – also, he doesn’t smile) and his poor combat methods, which makes it ridiculous how he manages to kill armies of wiseguys and remain mostly intact.

And finally, the movie actually seems to PRAISE Castle.

Yes, he might kill horrible criminals, but he is also a VERY sick man — an ambiguity the film doesn’t seem interested in acknowledging — and even the characters come to AGREE with his methods toward the end, saying he’s “one of the good guys”. And if Castle had said “No I’m not” and walked away, this ambiguity would have been recognized and enriched the film. However, he doesn’t. And we’re left with the impression The Punisher is somehow the “solution” to crime.

Despite being very flawed, “Punisher: War Zone” is a surprisingly entertaining, visceral film with beautiful cinematography, excellent technical aspects and some moments that make it worth watching. But it is far from the cinematic potential a character like The Punisher has, and it pointlessly wastes many good characters created by Garth Ennis or improved by him in some way.